Immigration debate is at a dangerous tipping point

Ahead of St Patrick’s Day, there cannot be too many of us who thought we’d be mentioning Garron Noone and Conor McGregor in the same breath.

Described on the front cover of his good friend and fellow Mayo social media star Alan Clarke’s recent book as a ‘national treasure’, Ballina’s Garron Noone is a hugely popular figure online with a combined social media following of over three million. A very successful appearance on The Late Late Show in January franked his burgeoning popularity. His witty, light-hearted videos, his gifts as a musician and his warm and engaging demeanour have ensured a meteoric rise to fame.

If Noone was described as a national treasure, McGregor is more akin to a national disgrace.

He shot to fame through his considerable success in mixed martial arts in the Ultimate Fighting Championships. He was full of bluster and bravado but, for the most part, was able to follow it up in the Octagon and became a world champion in the fledgling sport.

Many wondered if all the trash talk was an act that McGregor needed to put on to make himself ‘box-office’. Perhaps it was initially but certainly by the end of his career and subsequently, McGregor was revealing that his stage name ‘The Notorious’ was quite a mild description.

Late last year he was found civilly liable for the rape of Dublin woman Nikita Hand. He continues to deny this and has appealed the decision, claiming the sex to be consensual. His partner and children were at home while he was with Ms Hand. The forensic evidence against him was compelling. A paramedic who examined Ms Hand the day after said she had not seen a patient as bruised as Ms Hand in a long time while the evidence from a gynaecologist was quite gruesome. McGregor admitted to taking cocaine on the night.

That case led to McGregor becoming a pariah in Ireland, but it is not his first encounter with the law. He is also facing a civil trial in the USA for alleged sexual assault. Meanwhile, in 2018, he was arrested in New York for throwing a metal dolly at the window of a bus which had a group of UFC staff and athletes on board and he also pleaded guilty to the assault of a man in a Dublin pub in August 2019. McGregor punched the man who repeatedly refused a shot of his Proper No Twelve Irish Whiskey.

Therefore, he has a lengthy rap sheet of allegations and charges and his contempt for the law is well-established on both sides of the Atlantic.

McGregor clearly has a massive lack of self-awareness and a lack of shame. Most people with his rap sheet would run for cover for the rest of their lives and be afraid to be seen. McGregor isn’t most people. Here, he is claiming to speak on behalf of the people of Ireland and ordering the Irish government around.

Anyone who truly cares about Ireland should see it as an affront and very worrying that US President Donald Trump would see fit to invite a figure held in such contempt in modern Irish life to the ‘prime time’ St Patrick’s Day slot while the democratically elected leader of our country, Micheál Martin, was, as it turned out, relegated to an appearance five days previously.

Now, you can criticise the Irish government all you want - as I have frequently done in this column and will continue to do - but we had a general election only last November, the outcome of which was Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael creating a government with the support of a regional independents’ group.

And even if people might argue about it being a narrow majority they have created, I dare think it is fair to say that virtually all the opposition – as polarised as they are on the speaking rights debacle right now – would gladly plumb for the Taoiseach over McGregor to be in the White House on St Patrick’s Day.

It was an insult to the Irish government and, whatever views people might have about immigration, an insult to Irish people too.

It is quite alarming to see what Trump and Co are trying to do here. They are trying to interfere in Irish politics. Elon Musk, a man far too close to the levers of power in the USA than anyone should be comfortable with, has form on interfering in the politics of other democracies. Indeed, specifically in Ireland, he has considerable form on amplifying dangerous far-right rhetoric in this country.

It is clear they will do what they can to help push McGregor towards the office of the presidency of this country, which should send a shiver down the spine of anyone who has a shred of decency in them.

Plenty of people have said that while they do not like McGregor, they agree with what he said. That’s a concern too.

It is one thing to raise concerns about immigration, it is quite another to believe comments like: ‘There are rural towns in Ireland that have been overrun in one swoop, that have become a minority in one swoop.'

He also said: ‘Ireland is at the cusp of potentially losing its Irishness’ and talking of an ‘illegal immigration racket’.

All these comments are inflammatory and designed to stoke fear in people.

Do you think McGregor actually cares about towns like Ballina and Ballaghaderreen which have seen local concerns over aspects of immigration? More fool you.

No, in much the same way as Donald Trump doesn’t care about the working class people in the US and doesn’t care about issues he claims to. All he and McGregor are doing is playing to a base, going after people’s fears and insecurities in the hope that this will bring them to power. It has worked for Trump and people seem all too happy to gloss over his abhorrent past.

Into this ‘debate’ waded Garron Noone who undoubtedly regrets doing so. To conflate immigration with rising crime, as he appeared to do unwittingly, was leaving himself open to justified criticism.

Of course, the trouble now with everyone having an unvetted platform, is that far too many people are incapable of arguing without turning nasty or personal and Noone got some grief. Perhaps as worrying for him though was the support of people like high-profile, nasty far-right agitators like Katie Hopkins and Andrew Tate. However, overall, his comments were met with broad support.

Noone is correct that it is hard to raise concerns about immigration without being labelled racist. The reality is that we are at a tipping point with the issue of immigration and there has not been near enough engagement on people’s genuinely held fears about the issue.

With so much misinformation being thrown out online by the likes of Conor McGregor and many others, which stokes people’s fears, the government of this country need to be far more engaging with middle Ireland who are not trying to raise tensions but have concerns.

Immigration, generally, has been very positive for Ireland. Where would our health service be without medics coming in from abroad? Many service industry businesses simply could not function without immigrants.

Many people have come to this country fleeing war and persecution. Others are coming here looking for a better quality of life for their families, as so many Irish did for generations in the UK and the USA.

Perhaps it is a good time to talk about a medium-term plan about how many applicants through the IPAS system (formerly asylum seekers) we can house and where. There are pinch points, areas not capable of managing the number of people housed there while there are other areas more than capable.

However, not engaging and instead just focusing on the far-right will only drive more of the middle ground, more of middle Ireland, in that direction.

Conor McGregor will not be elected as President of Ireland this year. He probably won’t even receive enough support for a nomination, as it should be. But with Trump, Musk and co trying to re-engineer Irish politics, the current government of this land have a huge responsibility to keep them at bay.